Gifts for the Teachers

Earlier this week, I was busy, busy, busy putting these little gifts together for the teachers at my children's schools. First off, I made these little hot cocoa packets for the teachers and staff at Jevin's school. They went like hot cakes! :)

Here's a picture of the inside:

The idea for these little cocoa packets comes from a project I saw on the SU! demo web site. I made half of the packets with cocoa and half of them with hot cider. The holder itself is made out of a lunch bag, which is trimmed at 8". Fold the bag in half, decorate the front and inside as desired and then insert your beverage packet of choice. The ribbon ties around the entire packet, holding everything neatly in place.

Teacher gift #2 comes to you courtesy of Patty Bennett - she has a wonderful tutorial on how to make these adorable file folder note pads holders.
I used the Thoroughly Modern File Folders from the SU! catalog, along with the coordinating Thoroughly Modern designer paper. I also included a matching pen and set of thank you cards.

This will be my last post of the year. I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with my family and taking a little stampin' break. I hope that you have a blessed and joyful Christmas and I'll see you back here in 2010!

More Washer Pendants

I'm sharing a few more gifts that I've been working on - washer pendant necklaces. I made a few of these and posted them earlier this month, which I kept for myself, but I wanted to make a couple for Christmas gifts as well. This first necklace I made for a young customer of mine and faithful blog reader (Hey, Lins!). She really liked the last batch of washer pendants I made, so I made her a belated birthday/Christmas present.

I was told that Certainly Celery was her favorite SU! color, so I used some of the Sale-A-Bration paper I had left over from last year. I jazzed up the pendant with a Filigree Designer Brad - cute, huh?

Now, on to necklace #2, which I made for my downline, Stacey. I wanted to try using more than one washer pendant on a necklace, so I made three out of the same dsp (Thoroughly Modern dsp in this case) and I found some JUMBO jump rings at a local craft store, and linked the pendant together. I love the chunky, urban look this necklace has.

That's all for today! I'm still finishing up a few last minutes gifties for teachers and such, but I'm REALLY close to wrapping everything up - WAHOO!

Decor Elements Gift

This is one of the projects I have been working on as I try to "wrap up" all of my Christmas gifts (hee hee!). This was pretty quick and easy, as far as gift-making goes. I think the most time-consuming part of this project was picking out the frame! The phrase is from the Decor Elements catalog - Great Dreams (small) in Chocolate Chip.

I chose a frame that is two panes of glass, where you can suspend photos between the glass and still see the wall behind the photos. I decided on this type of frame because that way the recipient can choose to showcase photos or designer paper (like I have done here) or she can leave the frame empty and simply display the phrase. I used a two sheets of Razzleberry Lemonade designer paper in the frame, trimming the pages to the desired size and taping the seams together on the back of the paper. You really can't see the seams, which I'm very happy about! :) I think that my mom will love this gift - it will be perfect for her quilting room. Want to see more products from the Decor Elements line? Visit my demo web site for more information.

Fun & Funky Snowflake Thanks

This is a fun lil' thank you card with a holiday color twist. We made this card at my last stamp-a-stack.

I used Lavender Lace, Certainly Celery and Melon Mambo, definitely a non-traditional color combo for a winter thank you card. Super quick, super easy and something to brighten someone's cold, snowy day.

Stamps: Serene Snowflakes, Thank You Kindly
Paper: Melon Mambo, Whisper White
Ink: Lavender Lace, Certainly Celery, Melon Mambo, Basic Black
Accessories: 1 1/4" circle punch, rhinestone brad, Melon Mambo polka-dot grosgrain ribbon, corner rounder punch

Granola Treat Box

Hi! I'm back with a little project that will be delivered to my neighbors today. I made these yummy treat boxes, which hold homemade granola, for their holiday enjoyment. If you'd like the recipe, it's from my sister-in-law, and you can find it here.

These Treat Boxes are SO easy to put together and are perfect for a quick packaging solution. I jazzed the box up with some Real Red polka-dot grosgrain ribbon and a tag from the Two Tags die. I stamped the image from Sweet Season and colored in the heart using my Real Red marker. I also added a touch of Crystal Effects to the heart, just to make it extra pretty and shiny.

That's all for today. I'll have some more projects to share later this week. Bye for now!

Stamps: Sweet Season
Paper: Very Vanilla, Real Red
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Real Red
Accessories: Treat Boxes, Real Red polka-dot grosgrain ribbon, gold cording, Two Tags die, Big Shot, large cello bags, Crystal Effects, Wide Oval punch

The Big Blizzard

You may have heard about the big snow storm that recently hit the midwest and here are some pics from our snow day yesterday. When I got up on Wednesday morning, this is the sight that greeted me on our deck. I just laughed!

We really enjoyed our snow day and we made it outside to play in all of the snow. Here's my little cutie, just before making a snow angel. The snow came up to just below her waist!

I even managed to get a few projects finished, but alas, my camera is on the fritz. I'm planning on getting a new one in the next couple of days, and then I can share them with you! In the meantime, I'll be getting ready for my stamp-a-stack on Saturday and plugging away on the rest of my Christmas projects. Bye for now!

CAS44 - Color Challenge

Here's a quick little card I put together this morning for this week's CAS challenge: create a card using red, brown and white or vanilla. I used the set Branch Out, which will be retiring on January 4th. If you'd like to see the other dormant stamp sets that will be retiring in January, see the end of this post.

I love the Dazzling Diamonds on the snowflakes - it adds a little something to the card and makes it pop!

I hope your week is off to a great start! I may not be able to post as many projects in the next couple of weeks as I usually do, due to holiday craziness. Anyone else out there feeling slightly frazzled?! LOL! Just wanted to let you know that I'm still here, but I have lots of projects to finish up. I'll try to check in and share when I can. :) Have a wonderful Monday!
Stamps: Branch Out, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Paper: Kraft
Ink: Basic Brown, Real Red, Whisper White craft ink
Accessories: Mat Pack, Paper-Piercing Tool, glue pen, Dazzling Diamonds glitter, 1 1/4" Chocolate Chip striped grosgrain ribbon

The following stamp sets will be discontinued on January 4, 2010.
113407 Back Woods
114492 Beautiful Baby
114486 Birthday Wish
113200 Branch Out
114496 Celebrations
113732 Central Park
113206 Classic Sketches
113226 Classy & Fabulous
114498 Flowers in Silhouette
113405 Font of You
113216 For the Bride
114494 Forever
109425 Friend by Definition
114488 Fun Flowers
113716 Garden Greetings
114490 Glad Friends
111580 Grand Soiree
113242 Hit the Road
113710 Lexicon of Leaves
113236 Man's Best Friend
114423 Ocean Commotion
113728 Playful Petals
109276 Polka Dot
111544 Putt Putt
113240 Quilt Quips
113754 Really Retro
113403 Sip by Sip
113726 Sweet Stems
113250 That's Funny
113688 Wonderful Watercolors
114028 Para la novia
114032 Acuarelas Maravillosas

More MDS Projects

While I should have been sleeping last night, I was playing around with My Digital Studio. Seriously, people, this software is addicting! Yesterday we had our first real snow - the big flakes, a little ground cover, the pretty kind of snow that doesn't cause too many problems (my personal favorite). My kids were absolutely giddy! I took some shots of my son trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue - he was so cute. This is the page I made with the pics:

This next project probably looks pretty familiar. I made a 12x12 scrapbook page using MDS the other day using the same layout and photos. I made some minor adjustments and, using the MDS software, turned it into a Christmas card.

I love the colors in this - I especially like the pink, whick I pulled from Enavi's sweatshirt. I love that MDS has the option of matching a color from a photo in your layout. I designed the inside of the card to look like this:

Well, that's all for today, folks. Have a great weekend!

Washer Pendant Necklaces

The Technique Lover's Challenge on Splitcoast this week is to create a washer pendant that can be used on a necklace or other jewelry item. You can view the the thread, with instructions, here. I had a lot of fun with this! The hardest part is waiting for the Crystal Effects to dry for 24 hours. I love how shiny and pretty these are.

To make the first pendant, I used Razzleberry Lemonade dsp and some Very Vanilla Taffeta Ribbon. The second necklace is made with Night & Day Specialty dsp (from the Holiday Mini) and is threaded onto a pre-made necklace I picked up at a craft store. I made the little heart pendant myself using some wire and beads - cute, huh?

I'm thinking about making more and turning them into necklaces, bookmarks or key chains for little Christmas gifts. My kids wanted to make some as well, and they want to make their into ornaments to hang on our Christmas tree. These are kind of addicting, but relatively inexpensive to make. My husband even said, "Wow! You'd never know that started out as metal washers." :) Thanks for stopping by today and I'll see you back here soon!

My Digital Studio Scrapbook Page

Oh, boy! I have been having SO much fun playing around with My Digital Studio (MDS) today! I made this fabulous page, using picture of my little cuties. They were having so much fun playing in the leaves in early November and I had to take some photos.

I have to say that I am VERY impressed with the MDS software. I found it to be quite user friendly and the options are endless - seriously. I have to admit that I don't do much scrapbooking, simply because I get overwhelmed with the whole process. For some reason, I find the digital version much less intimidating. Weird, huh? I love the fact that I have thousands of images at my disposal (some of which are exclusive to MDS) and I can resize just about everything and make it whatever color I want. How cool is that?! Anyway, I'm hoping to put together a Christmas card of some kind and who knows what else! I'll be sure to share my projects with you.

December Mom & Me Stamping

Here's a little peak at the projects we made at this month's Mom & Me Stamping class (formerly known as Mother/Daughter Stamping - we thought we should change the name so the boys out there who like to stamp know that they are welcome to join us, too!).

This month's projects were put together by my upline, Karla Anders. We made an adorable little hot cocoa gift packet out of a brown paper bag, a candy tube (made out of an empty toilet paper roll), and a cute lil' Christmas card, using the Cold & Cuddly stamp set. We had lots of fun! If you live in the Madison area and would like to join us, check out my calendar on the right for our next class times in January.